


we can haunt each other's dreams

by lovetincture



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Divergence, M/M, Other, Post-Apocalypse, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29083500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture
Summary: Jon is alone now, but he's hardlyalone.He's never alone.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, The Beholding/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	we can haunt each other's dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Canon divergence from episode 165, aka that's as far as I've gotten in canon

The Eye does love him. It had taken so long for Jon to wrap his head around that fact—not for lack of understanding. Oh, no. Unknowing, blissful ignorance was a blind-eyed delight only served in bygone days. He supposes he just hadn’t wanted to hear it. To know it.

But the Eye loves him. He is its instrument, its incarnation, the prybar that cracked the world open like an oyster, soft-fleshed and vulnerable for its consumption. The Eye loves him in a way that only a greedy, distant concept can. That is to say, wholly, passionately, consumingly and without remorse.

It hadn’t meant to take Martin from him. He knows that, as he knows all things now. It had meant to allow him Martin, an indulgence for a favored lover. Child? Lover. It all gets confused, the way the Eye loves him. Martin had been a gift, and Jon had cherished him, grabbed him tight in both hands, determined to make a way for them through this new world, this unreliable, unrelenting hellscape.

It had worked for a while.

But humans are so fragile, and the horrors are so many. And at the end of the day, Jon is only one man. Entity? Man. He no longer needs to sleep, no longer needs to eat. Even the necessity of taking statements is a relic of the past. There’s no need to seek and hunt when fear flows freely all around him. Everything his eye touches feeds him. Feeds his master. Same thing.

But there had been moments of inattention, over the years. Close calls, deaths narrowly averted (Martin’s, always Martin’s). It’s simple probability, really. Arrogance has always been an issue of his, but he had really thought he’d be able to keep Martin safe forever. More fool him, he supposes.

*

He’s alone now, but he finds grief in the loneliness. The Eye doesn’t want his sorrow, isn’t interested in his suffering, only his fear. Only his experience as he indulges in the perpetual smorgasbord of fright around him. Even that palls, when he’s alone.

The Eye brings him Elias. He thinks it might be its idea of a post-apocalyptic meetcute. The thought drags a ragged huff of laughter from Jon’s throat. Just a small one.

The first thing he does is punch Elias in the face. He’s never really been one for physical violence, and the apocalypse hasn’t done much to change that, so most of what happens is he hurts his hand. He does split Elias’ lip though, tissue breaking open against teeth, and the smear of red is satisfying before it closes again. They both heal much too quickly for a fist fight to be much of anything but an exercise in futility, but Jon is too full of anger for anything else, and Elias—Elias laughs as Jon hits him, again and again. They end up on the floor, Jon breaking his knuckles against Elias’ face, against the pulpy grind of bone against bone. Elias doesn’t stop laughing, but eventually he does get his hands around Jon’s neck.

He squeezes until Jon loses consciousness, his vision greying at the edges before it blinks out entirely. He chokes and wheezes in Elias’ firm grip. He can feel something shift painfully in his throat and knows it’s his trachea collapsing.

Maybe he ought to thank Elias, is the last thought he has for a while. It’s been so long since he’s slept.

*

Of course the respite is short-lived. He wakes up none the worse for the wear, annoyed with a sore throat that will linger for the next hour or so. Elias has already cleaned up. The blood is gone from his face, the only trace of their pointless spat the gore-spotted handkerchief folded on his desk.

“It’s good to see you, Jon. You’re looking well.”

Jon laughs. He laughs and laughs and laughs himself sick, and then he punches Elias again.

*

“Are you quite done?” Elias asks on their third (fourth? Honestly who can even keep count anymore) go-round.

“Depends,” Jon says, licking his own blood off his teeth. “Are you going to keep talking?”

Elias looks him over, unimpressed. Honest to god pursed-lip _disappointed_ in Jon, as though he has any right to be. As though he’s still Jon’s boss, still head of the Magnus Institute—as if there’s still a Magnus Institute, or a London, or a world. They’re even standing in the tower, in what looks to be Elias’ office or a very good replication of it, and Jon can’t believe that he ended up here.

“Have you got a drink?” Jon asks, and Elias pulls out a decanter of whiskey Jon swears wasn’t there before. He’s almost gotten over his attachment to physics but not quite. His capacity for surprise is intact.

He expects Elias to hand him a glass, but he just passes Jon the bottle instead.

Jon raises an eyebrow. “Going feral in your monarchy, then?”

Elias gives a shrug that still manages to look graceful. “When in Rome. Seems like a little savagery is in order, doesn’t it?”

“Although I don’t suppose there is still a Rome.”

“Figure of speech.”

Elias watches him expectantly, and that’s not so different than what happens on any other day. Elias is always watching him. His hand is curled around the neck of the bottle, some piece of expensive crystal that survived the apocalypse when so many didn’t. Martin didn’t. Melanie. Georgie. Basira. Daisy. Who’d have thought Tim would be the luckiest of them all?

Elias says, “Come now, Jon, you’re being maudlin,” and Jon briefly considers shattering the bottle against the wall so as not to give Elias the satisfaction, but he feels so much older than he should. He really wants a fucking drink.

He takes one gulp and then another, the whiskey burning a satisfying line down his throat. Elias watches him and watches him, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He opens his mouth to say something.

“Drink,” Jon says, thrusting the bottle into Elias’ chest hard enough to jar against the bone.

“Cheers,” Elias says.

He takes a long, deep swallow of his own. Jon thinks about hitting him again, but instead he just watches.

*

It’s funny the things you can get used to at the end of the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> [When all of our friends are dead and just a memory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrAuzXCu788)
> 
> I'm new to the fandom! I'm friendly! I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lovetincture)!


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